Role-play
What is it?
Role-play involves students ‘taking on a role’, this may be with one or more other students, or with a trained actor; for example, in the case of a simulated patient or client. The reported benefits cover all domains of Bloom’s taxonomy (Rao & Stupans, 2012) including knowledge (i.e. deeper understanding of the subject area), skills (e.g. communication, critical thinking), and attitudes (e.g. empathy).
How does it work?
Rao & Stupans (2012), based on an interview study with staff facilitating role-play activities in a large Australian University, developed a typology for role-plays comprising three types:
- ‘Role switch’ – students taking on the role of a person or object to ‘learn from the inside out’, mapped to the ‘Knows’ level of Miller’s pyramid of clinical competence, based on Bloom’s cognitive domain;
- ‘Acting’ – students developing skills in the context of a scenario, mapped to ‘Shows how’ in Millers pyramid, based on Bloom’s affective and psychomotor domains; and
- ‘Almost real life’ – students applying skills in a simulated, safe environment, mapped to ‘Does’ in Miller’s pyramid, based on all domains of Bloom’s taxonomy.
The study emphasised the importance of pre-activity planning, activity, and debrief. The authors also produced a set of guidelines for role-play, not just about the design of the role-play but whether it is assessed, how is it set up, whether peer feedback or other forms of feedback (e.g. video) should be considered, and guidelines to set student expectations around respectful behaviour.
Does it work?
There appear to be no systematic reviews of role-plays in higher education to date (with the exception of role-play with simulated patients in medical education, e.g. Stevanny & Syakurah, 2022).
Role switch example: In an introductory biology course where students role-played different biological structures to replicate the process of DNA translation (Avadhani, 2024), a pre- and post-test assessment revealed a significance increase in performance; this dropped some weeks afterwards, but performance was still higher than before the role-play.
Acting example: Role-play was used in a first-year history course in the context of learning about partition in India in the 1940s (Stevens, 2015); by taking on the personae of individuals whose oral histories had been transcribed, most students reported enhanced learning and engagement; history was more personal with multiple perspectives experienced, and students demonstrated critical thinking skills. However, a minority of students reported not learning from the role-play, potentially due to lack of preparation.
Almost real life example: Role-play was used in a business and marketing course to supplement work-based learning (Kettula & Berghäll, 2013); analysis of student learning journals revealed that it helped students learn content, learn from peers, cope with uncertainty, apply theory to practice in the context of real world issues, and solve ill-defined problems. However, challenges included student anxiety and a lack of support from teachers which made their learning feel incomplete.
What do I need?
As noted by Rao & Stupans (2012), it is important for educators to consider preparation for the role-play, the activity itself and how it may be supplemented by props or potentially recorded, and a debrief discussion where students can be encourages to reflect on learning from the role-play; see their original work for specific recommendations.
References
Avadhani, M. (2024). Role Play as an Effective Engagement Technique in an Introductory Biology Class. Teaching and Learning Excellence through Scholarship, 4(1). https://tales.journals.publicknowledgeproject.org/index.php/tales/article/view/3211
Kettula, K., & Berghäll, S. (2013). Drama-based role-play: a tool to supplement work-based learning in higher education. Journal of Workplace Learning, 25(8), 556-575. https://doi.org/10.1108/JWL-04-2012-0036
Rao, D., & Stupans, I. (2012). Exploring the potential of role play in higher education: development of a typology and teacher guidelines. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 49(4), 427-436. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2012.728879
Stevanny, B., & Syakurah, R. A. (2022). The use of peer role-play in doctor-patient communication skills training for medical students: A systematic review. International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE), 11(3), 1066-1073. https://doi.org/10.11591/ijere.v11i3.21901
Stevens, R. (2015). Role-play and student engagement: reflections from the classroom. Teaching in Higher Education, 20(5), 481-492. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2015.1020778